


can't you hear them?

by despairingdignities



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-17
Updated: 2017-07-21
Packaged: 2018-12-03 13:09:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11532906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/despairingdignities/pseuds/despairingdignities
Summary: Of course he was behind this.She supposed she had made the first move in their little chess game, and should have known better than to expect it over.And she laughed, laughed so hard that her restraints bit into her painfully in several places, but fell silent when he continued.





	1. Chapter 1

If he looked at her from the right angle, and there was just enough light in the Vault, those chilled blue eyes could have looked just like water.

There was no questioning that Missy’s eyes were striking, startling even to those who had never met her, but if you knew how to look like the Doctor did they were the window to her emotions, to her soul.

Somehow, sadness made her eyes even more beautiful, when stifled tears brimmed, or when untold emotions lingered like smoke to tell him the stories words couldn’t; or maybe, they were most beautiful when all it took was her to look at him for a warm smile to spread across his lips.

Bill had made comment after comment about how he was never usually like that, how he was usually a stubborn, salty old man – “he still is a stubborn, salty old man,” Missy would interject, and he’d glare at her, one of those ‘shut up glares’ – who wouldn’t smile if it would save his life.

And were it not for Missy’s presence, Bill might perhaps have been right.

But this was not sadness, nor one of those meaningful glances, this was sheer fear radiating off her in crashing waves like blows to his stomach. Eyes wide in surprise, in fright, but the problem was that nothing was there.

Nothing that the Doctor could see, anyway; one of life’s worst weapons was using your own head against you, your memories, your fears, your emotions, people you know. Maybe he shouldn’t have thought about that; the thought of him being used against her twisted in his insides and brought bile rising in his throat.

Red-painted lips moving fast, frantic, as though she wanted to bare her soul in soundless words no-one else could interpret or hear, as though she didn’t think she’d have the chance to later. It was far too rapid for him to read, until she paused, a desperate gasp for breath that came back out shakily, and equally desperately, in the shape of his name.

“Doctor,” she whispered, and the pain expressed in that single word seemed to tear him open.

Gently, he placed her hands on her shoulders (in hopes of bringing her back to the ground), steered her to look at him. The sight of a different brand of tears skimming her eyelashes was sickening him with worry.

Without hesitation, his arms reached out.

Missy collapsed into him in a way he had never expected her to, her hands tangling in the back of his jacket, and clinging for dear life. Afraid he’d let her go.

He murmured reassurance that he wouldn’t. She seemed to relax, rested her head on his shoulder in tiredness and resignation; he placed his hand gently against her chest and felt them, jerking it back at the sensation.

The beats were arrhythmic, fearful, terrified of something that was beyond him, beyond anyone on reality’s plane it seemed. What had set her into this state? There was very little, he knew, that could intimidate or scare his old friend.

Daleks? Fine. Cybermen? Actually her favourite, he knew. Basically, anything that could kill a man? Hell, yes. Yet whatever this was, was killing her from the inside out.

When he tried to look for himself, because she was in no state to tell him, he was – to put it mildly - thrown out, and none too gently, either, gasping. Confusion was just barely discernible beyond the distress as she raised her head to look at him again.

“Missy,” he said, regulating his voice and his breathing, “I can’t help you unless you let me in, okay?”

He tried again. Same result. Only this time she let out a cry of such unadulterated anguish that he dared not try again for fear of consequences, although that was a ridiculous notion. Right?

Missy’s head shook violently where she had buried it, back in his chest, hair now concealing her face. “Not me,” she stuttered out, trying to breathe. “It - it’s -”

Before she could finish a second sharp, pained cry rung in the air and in his ears, and she rested her face against his neck - and there, choked out sobs.

Something was really, truly, very wrong with his oldest friend. While he had known her to cry during her years spent here, mostly alone, never before had she sobbed. Her pride - straight-backed, smirking, snickering - had always won out, she had never (quote unquote) lowered herself ‘to the wretched thing you humans call sobbing.' But now her frame was racked with them, shaking and trembling.

All she could say was his name, whispering it against his neck, each time more mangled and broken by the choking. Her voice was heartbreaking, a resounding plea for help. Help she might have resented and rejected a long time ago were it offered, and now that she wanted it - no, needed it - he could not give her any.

How he wished that he could. Relieve whatever pain she was feeling, or take it on himself so she didn’t have to feel it, if there was a way.

“Is it the flashbacks again?”

For weeks she had woken up screaming, clammy to the touch, eyes darting around wildly. Each time she had dreamed about him, and her apparent demise on Floor 507. No matter how hard she tried, it seemed she would never shake the malevolent ghost of her former self.

The Doctor had taken to sleeping at her side again. Sometimes it would help, the knowledge that her Doctor was still there, at her side. That the dashing, yet unquestionably evil young man had not succeeded in ripping them apart.

But this time she shook her head, murmured a “No.” It wasn’t the dreams, although Missy was sure those wouldn’t be going away either.

So he tried again, tried to understand. “Are you seeing anything?”

Another shake, another no.

“Are you hearing anything?” He looked down at her, squeezing his eyes shut as he felt her nod, heard her affirmation.

No.

“I can hear them, Doctor,” Missy cried, “I can hear them. This isn’t supposed to happen…”

He opened his eyes.

The words she was mouthing, previously too fast to read, were clear as crystal now.

_“One, two, three, four.”_


	2. Chapter 2

“The drums,” he gasped, and she nodded. “He said the Gallifreyans cured them. You’ve never heard them before, have you?”

She shook her head.

The Doctor ran his hands through her dark hair, letting her rest her head on his lap. “I’m so sorry, Missy.”

Her eyes hardened. _Don’t be sorry_ , they read, and he watched her lips press into a thin line. The words she could not find were plain in her countenance - _I don’t need your pity._ Even now she objected to that.

“T...They hurt,” she confessed, after a while’s silence. “I’ve tried everything, Doctor, the piano, pillows over my ears, everything -”

So that was why her piano playing had been off-key. He _had_ thought it rather unlike her.

He looked down at her. “But you must have known it wouldn’t work.” _You can’t save yourself from something that’s inside you._

“Of course I knew it wouldn’t work,” Missy snapped, before realising how harsh she had sounded and looking down at the floor. “I’m sorry, this is making me all - _irritable_ ,” she murmured sadly, “Maybe it would be safer for you.”

“What would be safer for me?” The Doctor asked, tilting his head, harbouring a terrible feeling, one that he hoped wasn’t right.

Of course he was right. He had a terrible habit of that, being right.

“If you just leave,” Missy breathed out dejectedly, long fingers detaching themselves from his clothing. She stood up, crossed the room to the furthest corner. “ _Go_.”

“Why?”

Her eyes pleaded with him to walk out the Vault doors, although the rest of her body was reaching for him. “If you’re not in here, you don’t have to see what happens to me,” she said, letting the tears go, “And I - can’t hurt you.”

He stepped forward. “Missy -”

She stepped back. “No. You need to go. If you leave me it doesn’t matter if they drive me mad, if they take me over. I can’t hurt you. And everyone else will be safe too.”

“What happened to ‘ _D’ya think I couldn’t get through a door if I wanted to_?’” he asked, trying to reason with her with humour - she’d normally rise to the bait.

Missy flushed. “I said that to impress you. Now go, Thete.”

“Koschei -”

“Don’t,” the shorter brunette woman hissed. He was shocked by the sudden lack of anything resembling humanity in her voice. When he didn’t move, she took a step forward towards him, whitened knuckles at her sides. “I don’t want to hurt you, but I will make you leave if I have to.”

Every second that passed she stepped closer, her attempt to save face faltering further, the closer she got. Could she ever hurt him?

_You have hurt him_ , she reminded herself, _more than words can describe_. She’s already done it, and the drums are already filling her up to the brim with sardonic thoughts.

What’s one more time? Another round of walking through those toxic steps? One more of those little ‘dances’ where she hurts him beyond measure, he forgives her and they start again?

This time was different, because she was doing it for his own good.

She’s closed the gap between them and he’s asking the question of what she will do. Two variables, and she chooses the first.

The touch of her lips on his was blissful. He forgot how easy it was to melt into it as her eyelids flutter closed, and her arms wrapped gently in an embrace about his neck, before one hand rested on his shoulder, the other at his waist.

Missy’s eyebrows arched and a smirk spread across her lips when she pulled back. “Dance with me, Thete,” she said, her tone devilishly low, seductive even. “We can dance to the drums.”

He didn’t suspect a thing, which was most definitely unusual. But there was something about Missy when she was like this that left him lost in her, wrapped around her finger.

“Well, you’ll have to guide me,” he replied, resting his head against hers.

Her wicked grin returned. “Oh, Thete.”

“What?” He’s bewildered.

“When have I ever followed you?”

Their awkward dance was one of betrayal, but he realised too late that they had gotten closer to the door under her guidance. He realised only when she whispered _I’m so sorry_ against his ear.

Before he could react, he was sprawled across the floor outside the vault, groaning. The Doctor snapped his head around, and sure enough, those curious little eyes watched him.

But no victorious grin curled the lips of the murderess. She instead seemed tired, relieved almost. When he got to his feet she slammed the Vault doors in his face.

Behind them she crumbled, and didn’t even bother trying to pick herself up.

What she hadn’t told him about was the unmistakeable pressing of a mind on hers - the pressing of a mind that was simultaneously hers, and not hers at all.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Note: Yes, this is mostly AU on all counts, as you can tell from the characters in this chapter.

"Sir?”  
  
The cyborg had trundled back into the room. He stared at the spread-eagled man for a few brief moments.  
  
“Sir,” Nardole said again, rubbing his head. “If I might ask, what are you doing on the floor?”  
  
The Doctor scrambled to his feet, dusting his arms off. “I’m not on the floor,” he replied, flexing his shoulder gingerly. When it became clear this half-joke of an answer wouldn’t be enough for Nardole, he sighed. “Missy kicked me out of the vault.”  
  
“ _Literally_ , it looks like,” Nardole grumbled, “I told you nothing good would come out of her.”  
  
“No, she _shoved_ me,” the Time Lord corrected, as though it made a difference. “And she’s in pain. I can’t blame her.”  
  
It was quite plain that Nardole was never going to understand, so the Doctor pinched the bridge of his nose and continued on his way through the labyrinthine undergrounds of the university. Pacing would occasionally help him find a method in the madness. Was he feeling lucky today?  
  
This ‘feeling lucky’ did not get off to an awfully good start when the first room he walked into was…well, occupied. He ducked back out of the doorway as Bill and Heather abruptly pulled apart, the former’s cheeks dusted with pink in response to the interruption.  
  
“It’s just _girls kissing_ , Doctor,” the young woman said, “You can come back in now.”  
  
He was quite reluctant to interrupt his companion while she was enjoying an intimate moment with her girlfriend, but Heather smiled at him on her way out of the door. She, at least, didn’t mind. Perhaps because she understood somehow how important some (not all he ever said, he was equally prone to joking – Missy had increased the frequency of this with how mischievous she could be) of what he said could be.  
  
“Okay,” he replied, walking back through the opening doorway and offering Bill a grin.  
  
She must have seen it falter, because she frowned and walked over. “What’s the matter, Doctor? You seem…”  
  
“Upset? Sad? Like the world is crashing down around me?” he finished, and she nodded, somewhat taken aback by how point-blank he was. “I am, I am, and it is.”  
  
Honestly, Bill couldn’t remember him looking this distraught since she’d been in that suit, flanked with The Master and Missy on either side. “Well,” she said, searching for words, “Do you want to talk about it?”  
  
Silence, just for about a minute. Then he nodded.  
  
“I would like that. As long as you aren’t, you know, busy,” A nod towards the door. “If you’re busy, it can wait. I’m sure the situation will be much the same when you get back.”  
  
She laughed and led him to the back of the room, where the chairs were. “And leave you with only Nardole and Missy to talk it out with? I wouldn’t do that to you.”  
  
It was one of the only merciful part of that day that Bill did not see him flinch at the joke involving his dearest friend.  
  
He’s not sure where she’d gotten the tea from, but he took it from her when she offered it. “Thank you.”  
  
“I thought it might help,” Bill looked him over once, her lips twisting into a confused smile. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost. Which, after Daleks and Cybermen, I assumed wouldn’t be that scary for you, old man.”  
  
His words are hesitant, but there, and all too familiar in more ways than one. “I think maybe I _have_ ,” he said. “I don’t know what to do.”  
  
Bill gestured for him to carry on talking.  
  
“It’s Missy, Bill. She’s hurting and I don’t know how to help her. What good does that make me?” He laughed, a low, yet sad huff. “I’m supposed to be ‘ _The Doctor’_.”  
  
Bill had to choose her next words quite carefully – it had taken her a long time to warm to the Time Lady in the Vault – so as not to start an argument. “What’s the problem? Do you even know what the problem is?”  
  
Missy was incredibly stubborn. She knew that well.  
  
“Yes. She’s hearing the drums. Again, I suppose, but she’s never heard them in this form.” For some time, he forgot that he had never explained the story of the drums to Bill, had never needed to because they weren’t part of Missy anymore.  
  
“Drums?” Bill furrowed her brows, obviously lost. Why shouldn’t she be lost? “What’s so bad about drums? People play them for fun -”  
  
The Doctor held up a hand. “Yes, I know what people do with drums, Bill. But imagine you were hearing those drums, the same _one, two, three, four._ Every single second of your life, it never stops. Could you imagine that?”  
  
Her eyes had widened, again surprised. “Is she… _hearing that_?”  
  
At his nod, she bit her lip, and he could tell that his oldest friend had earned at least some of his newest friend’s sympathy. That was good. That was more than Nardole would ever budge, anyway, so it was progress. Progress with Nardole, however, would have to wait. Maybe _forever_.  
  
“The Master said they were gone,” the Doctor continued, “and she’s never heard them before. The drums were what drove Koschei…” He caught his use of his old friend’s name, and in response to him he could almost hear her.  
  
_Dance with me, Thete._  
  
“Koschei…The Master, mad in the first place. They’d drive anyone mad. But she’s scared. Missy’s scared that she’ll hurt me…she kicked me out of the Vault and won’t let me back in.” He paused, quoted her words. “ _Maybe it would be safer for you if you just leave_.”  
  
Bill was about to say something about how the Time Lady was probably right. After all, what wasn’t dangerous about Missy regressing to the psychotic state she’d been told of, from before she met her? The woman was intimidating enough as she was already, and she’d never seen her kill, let alone as many times as the Doctor must have. But she sensed that was not what he wanted to hear, and as she looked for something else, something she never thought possible occurred to her.  
  
“Maybe she’s doing that to keep you safe,” Bill said slowly, “because she _loves_ you?”  
  
It had been so obvious, yet she had always missed it. The way those blue eyes gazed at the Doctor like he was her whole universe and more, like he was everything that was good in the world. Bill had seen her eyes, dancing with the Master that night.  
  
They hadn’t been the same.  
  
Needless to say, the Doctor was quite shocked, and spluttered, red-faced. “What? No. She doesn’t love me. She doesn’t love _anyone_. Not even herself.” Oh, what a double-entendre that one was, and he hadn’t even meant it to be.  
  
Yes, she loved him. He knew she loved him in the way her eyes told him, in the fierceness of her lips, the lightness in her fingers. In the way that she held him tightly in the night, never wanting him to let her go. And he loved her, too, he truly did, and part of that was wonderful, part of it utterly _terrifying_. But you don’t get to choose parts of love, do you?  
  
“Yes, she does,” Bill said, and it sounded like she was admitting it as much to herself as to him. “Well, I don’t know how to help, but if the neighbours are playing loud music and I don’t like it, I’d find where it is coming from.”


	4. Chapter 4

The next morning, he decided he was going to take Bill’s advice. That would involve her co-operation, but he assumed it would work. Always assuming. He knocked on the vault door and called her name out, loud enough to wake her should she be asleep.  
  
“Missy!”  
  
Missy groaned and pushed her face into the pillow. She hadn’t been asleep, she’d just been lying there, the past days, not wanting to do anything or see anyone. Both aims were a resounding success, although they left her rather frailer for it.  
  
The most useful thing the drums could have done was drown him out so she didn’t have to hear, to lose her resolve. But he was on the right side of the vault door, making no effort to come in.  
  
“Can I come in?” he asked, his voice pleading. There it was, the pleading, the words that gave an answer of ‘yes’ in her head, but ‘no’ from her mouth.  
  
She sighed, long and wistful, glancing over at the door. Hesitant. “No, but if you have something to say, just say it. I’ll listen.”  
  
A memory rippled in her head but she shoved it aside with a frustrated little growl, nails digging into her palms, leaving little marks. They’d been coming back thick and fast, recollections of her many sins, of the blood on her hands – and sometimes, she’d see them when she closed her eyes. The people _and_ the blood.  
  
Some of them, she wasn’t even in this body for, yet she remembers them clear as day.  
  
The American president – Coleman Winters? – gets clearer, and clearer in her head. Although maybe _he_ deserved it, all things considered. He was a jerk who clearly judged books by their cover, and tried to take over first chance he got. Americans, always thinking they rule the world - another voice jerks her out of her slightly disgruntled reverie.  
  
“Do you know where the drums are coming from? If we know where they’re coming from, we can fix it, maybe.”  
  
He sounded so hopeful that it was barely possible to shoot him down. But she did it, anyway. She had to do it, for his own sake. If he had been able to see her eyes, filled with emotion, he would have known, but because he couldn’t, she could do it.  
  
_Yes_. “No,” The lie slid off her lips so naturally that it made her sick to the stomach. These lips weren’t made for truth-telling. A liar by trade and by nature, she still had not lost her affinity for hiding the untruth. “I don’t, I’m sorry.”  
  
The pressing was still there, by the day it got more and more forceful, like it was willing her skull to cave underneath the pressure. It wanted her mind to cave under the pressure, waiting for her to finally crack, but she was pushing back against it. Holding back the tide.  
  
For now.  
  
How much longer could she do it? Seconds, minutes, days, weeks? She didn’t want to think, she couldn’t think. Couldn’t even hear her own thoughts in her head anymore. Maybe it would settle, maybe it wouldn’t, she just didn’t know. For the vehement intellectual Missy was, _not knowing_ was the worst form of torture.  
  
The brunette propelled herself off the bed as if by impulse, gliding around the room she knew so well, carried by a distant aria of notes, humming thoughtlessly. She almost wasn’t controlling the steps she made – like she was beyond herself and her body, beyond the situation – letting someone else lead her.  
  
This distance had made her lonely, left her alone with only the drumming. She could hear his footsteps retreating down the hall, outside the door; he was leaving, and he hadn’t even asked again, or tried again to get her to relent. Was he _giving up_? A thought so chilling and yet so welcoming ran through her head in an instant, like a lightbulb, or maybe lightning (because the thought was none too pretty), and immediately, without a moment’s thought, she embraced it.  
  
Recklessness. A rush of adrenaline, a nearly-forgotten thrill.   
  
Hands rummaged clumsily in the drawers for a moment, searching for them in amongst the odds and ends he didn’t know she had. The sharp things, the things she had once had…other intents for.  
  
But with her resolve truly shattered by his resignation, if he could give up, she thought she could too.  
  
Missy contemplated the scissors in her palm, but the sudden additional sound in her head made her jump to her feet so fast they skittered away and underneath the wardrobe. “ _Shit_ ,” she cursed, listening to the new sound. There was no way she’d get the scissors out from beneath there, and knowing that, she sank back down to her knees beside the bed.  
  
Laughter, echoing in her skull. Laughter that sent shivers up her spine. Laughter that maybe _was_ hers, or maybe _wasn’t_ hers. It had long since blurred into one.  
  
After all, she and the occupant of her head (who had made himself quite comfortable, much to her discomfort) were one and the same.  
  
“Fuck off,” she whispered, of course he paid no mind. “At least I didn’t tell him, right?”  
  
No response. There never was, except for the drumming.  
  
Always the drumming.


	5. Chapter 5

The Doctor tried one more time. Guilt bore in his chest, but when no shriek emanated from inside and her mind seemed more pliable, he smiled.

Smiled a smile that immediately vanished at the flashes of image he got.

Broken, not quite telling the whole story of what had just happened after he turned his back, but enough. It’s a scene so like when they were teenagers.

Koschei had been reaching his wit’s end, but ‘his Thete’, as he liked to call him, saved his life. The Doctor was rather used to saving his old friend’s life, mostly by accident, but this was different - saving someone from themselves.

Then, as quickly as the door had opened it closed and he was shut out, reeling from being forced out again. It felt different from the last time, more personal, like it really was _her_ forcing him out.

He didn’t know when he started running, shouting, crying, scrambling through hallways; his old limbs objected and groaned, but he cared not.

“Missy?” Her name tore itself free from his throat as he approached the heavy vault doors, a desperate call for affirmation that she was still there, still with him. “Missy? If you don’t answer me I’m coming in there!”

Nothing.

Had he ever gone through the motions so fast? He didn’t think so, and he got it wrong many times because of his trembling fingers.

Finally, the doors hissed open, and he was faced with the sight of her folded in on herself, wrapped up in the bed. The sheets rustled and she lifted her head.

This sadness was not pretty. It was tear-tracks and puffy eyes, face flushed red from crying; it was running makeup and spent tissues scattered on the floor by the bed.

“I thought I told you to _stay away from me_ ,” she said, voice low and shaking, “And I thought I told you to _stay out of my head_.”

She had felt it, of course she had. The guilt rushed back up, filled him completely, to the point he didn’t feel like ‘sorry’ would ever be enough.

Perhaps this was them. Constant betrayals, moves and counter-moves, some of them little, others catastrophic but always quickly forgiven.

“I can’t stay away when you’re like this,” he replied firmly, “I promised to protect you, remember?”

Missy huffed. “Yeah, well, you can un-promise that pretty damned fast, I don’t deserve it. And that doesn’t explain why you decided to intrude on the privacy of my thoughts _again_.”

One step forward, closer. She didn’t move. Another until he was eventually seated on the bed next to her.

“I wanted to know what was wrong,” he said. He knew it wouldn’t excuse him, in her eyes nor in his. It wouldn’t excuse him, but it was the truth, and he could feel her eyes searching him for signs of a lie. She was the liar who hated being lied to.

“And since you won’t tell me, I had to find out.” Arms hugged tightly to her chest, she didn’t smile.

“I had my reasons for keeping that a _secret_ , Thete.”

Her gritted teeth hid the fear behind her forehead, the fearful question repeating itself, which secret did he know?

“You promised you’d never do that again,” His arms wrapped around her, propped her up against her pillows, pulled her in. “You promised you’d never, ever try to hurt yourself again. I’m going to have to take all of this.”

The scissors under the wardrobe, all the sharp things she had to end it with, he would take them all.

The Time Lady relaxed against him – he thought it to be tiredness, but it was relief. _He didn’t know_.

While the loss of all possible tools left her quite desolate and with no way to escape for now, she’d find her ways, she always did, although she knew he would be meticulous.

The Doctor had found himself the preserver of the life of his apparently-suicidal friend who “ _once built a gun out of leaves_ ”; he wouldn’t make her job easy.

“I just want it to stop,” she sighed, “It hurts, so much, and I want it to stop. More than anything.”

He remembered the last time. The last time before this that she had expressed a desire to die. Back then she was the British Prime Minister, Harold Saxon, killed in a very Caesar-like way (though by his wife and not his friends) lying prone in his arms.

It was still all too raw and real, the pain, and he couldn’t imagine bearing it again.

A whispering struck up in Missy’s head, and she tensed, board-like, barely moving even to breathe. Her hands dug into his jacket, his shoulder, so tightly that he winced but he could not budge her grip if she tried.

There was no way to know what she was hearing, but she was hearing a voice, it was easy to tell by the new-found fear and her words.

“Shut up, shut up, shut up.” Who was she talking to? He watched her with a concerned eye, placed his hand on hers until who – or what – ever she was talking to finally fell silent, and she glanced at him with bleary eyes, looking lost like she didn’t know quite what she was doing. “…Why are you staring?”

“Who are you talking to?” He asked, and she looked away from him in an instant, bolting into the corner of the room faster than she should have been able to in those shoes, turning her back to him and resting her head against the wall.

“Missy. Who are you talking to? I don’t want to have to - ”

It started as a barely audible snarl in her throat. Then her head snapped round in a flurry of unkempt hair, eyes flashing with an anger that would have scared anyone else. “Don’t you fucking dare,” she spat, “I have enough people in my head without you too!”

It was too late once the truth had slipped past her lips. The two shared a long stare, daring the other to break the silence first, and he watched the colour drain slowly from her face.

It was watching her so intently with such attention to detail that made him notice. There were deep, dark, circles under her eyes from endless hours of no sleep. Kept awake, no doubt, by the drumming and whoever was inside her head.

There had been little colour in her skin in the first place, brought on mostly by the heat of anger, but now she was almost bone-white. Speaking of bone, he could see a concerning amount of them, and the more he gazed at her the more awful he felt for allowing her to make him leave.

“Missy,” He tried not to let his voice quaver, “Who is in your head? And have you been eating?”

Missy chewed on the inside of her cheek, and chose to answer the second question and ignore the first. “No,” she answered, as steadily as she could, “I didn’t want to.”

He noticed the avoidance but chose to deal with the issue at hand for now. “You need to eat. Will you do that for me?”

She nodded. “I suppose. You won’t leave unless I do, will you?”

He shook his head.

And he could have sworn she smiled, but before he looked back it was gone.


	6. Chapter 6

She regretted sneaking out the moment she had done it - leaving him asleep in the bed where she might have been next to him and inching open the Vault door as quietly as she possibly could. She wasn’t precisely obligated to be in there, anyway, she’d chosen to find her solitude there since she knew the Vault and its comforts well and needed relief from the nightmares of the two weeks on that solar farm floor. Egghead was asleep (incompetent, and he’d be getting a yelling-at when the Doctor discovered he’d let her slip without him), and the girl obviously otherwise occupied, given her absence.

The outside world was strange, musty, different than when she had last seen it some seventy years ago (and she must stick out like a sore thumb) but she did not let that affect her brisk walk, determined countenance. She knew all too well what she was looking for, and even if he did hide his - quote Doctor - “stupid round face” she’d know him, in an instant. Many back-alleys existed around London, and it was this network that all the wannabe kingpins of the city would use. Which she had no doubt he had, or was at least trying to, become. Power was like a drug. Easy to taste, hard to let go of, occasionally toxic.

Her Doctor was one of the few that had little interest in power, but he had his own equally potent (or perhaps more so) drug to contend with - hope. That man held hope in everything, in this forsaken world, and even in the greatest lost cause the universe had ever dared to create and discover. In her, who was by all accounts too damned to be saved, but he selflessly tried anyway with the risk of breaking his heart by failing. And, against the odds, it seemed he might have succeeded. Mostly.

Missy, despite her own efforts, still had her moments. And this wandering alone at night through alleys, dodging piles of who-knew-what, was one of them. If she wanted to, her skill at lying was too tightly bound to her to let go, and she had always been quite the actress. To be a backstabber you had to have a flair for the dramatic. She wasn’t particularly wary; there was only one person here who had any chance at killing her, and he’d already failed once.

“I didn’t think you’d actually have the nerve to show up, Lady-Version,” came the voice as she walked by.

She turned around on her heel, slowly, putting her facade together piece by piece so she didn’t smolder with her anger. 

He hadn’t even bothered to hide his face, aside from a thin near-pitiful black hood he’d clearly worn passing through the busier streets. The Master of disguise had rather clearly lost his touch, and it was this thought that prompted the tiny snigger. Yet there he was, jauntily leant against the wall, smirking, the man responsible for all this pain she had been put through. That the Doctor had been put through by association with her as she was steadily hollowed out. Every inch of her being itched to throw all that back in his face with a well-timed fist.

Yet she sensed that wouldn’t be very smart, so although anger seethed beneath the surface at being called merely a ‘lady version’ of him, she laced her hands behind her back and forced her lips into what she was sure was one of those smirks of old. She was better than him - she knew that, she’d seen that, the Doctor had told her that. More fool him.

Here was her stage, and she considered being upfront, but decided against it. So much happiness came from the thought of making him look the fool she thought he was, in so many ways, that it was simply irresistible. The thrill of acting again was almost therapeutic as she walked towards him, closing the gap; perhaps, if she hadn’t gone down this path, she’d have been made for the stage. Pushing that thought aside, she continued.

Scarily, the poisonous (truthfully rather bittersweet to come back around to) sadism that dripped off her taunts was completely genuine, but she didn’t allow herself time to dwell on that - the slightest flicker and he’d notice, almost certainly he would notice, and her well-built ruse would crumble.

“Clearly you don’t know me quite as well as you think you do, Mr. ‘I’m A Man So I’m Better Than You.’ Now, are you going to get yourself and your drums out of my head or will I have to make you? This street’s only just been cleaned and I’d hate to make a mess of it.”

It was frustrating that he only grinned - lamp like, intoxicating, but also incredibly irritating - and tipped her chin up with a finger, grinning away in her face until she jerked back, at which point he laughed. 

And she wished he hadn’t, because his laugh was twenty times more annoying than his smile and it called back memories she had been trying to forget. Memories of the spaceship, and the floor, and the way her whole self was stricken with pain as she laid amongst the forage and the dirt, as she laid there dying. A place she never wanted to go again, but constantly revisited in painful lucid dreams in which no different action she took could save her, or him. It was always the same.

His laughter cut short after some time and he stepped forward to cup her face between his hands as her eyes warned him not to push the little luck he had. “Actually, I think I like you better this way, lady-version. All the spunk I fell in love with before I realised you were on the Doctor’s leash.”

“I am not on the Doctor’s leash,” Missy snapped, indignantly, both eyebrows shooting upwards and stepping backwards away from him again - she pulled her hands away from each other and let them lie at her side instead. “And if you think I am, you really don’t know me as well as you think you do.” An unnerving giggle formed in her throat and slipped out. “To think you don’t even know yourself...what a shame that is!”

He’d once been known as Harold Saxon, and she considered calling him that again just to annoy him, the more that he grinned and smirked in her face. It seemed the more threats she made, the more she lost her temper, the more gratified he was.

“Yes, I definitely prefer you like this,” he taunted, “It seems that out of the two of us it might be me who finally gets what I want.”

She folded her arms. “I didn’t get what I wanted last time. You are clearly not dead and equally as arrogant as you always were - if you’d care to explain that, I’m listening.”

From the get-go she knew he’d never explain. Her process was one of the things he knew inside-out. Ask questions, formulate a plan based on the answers to those questions. “You aren’t dead either,” he pointed out, “and you’re supposed to be never-ever-coming-back dead. So neither of us got what we wanted. Did the Doctor save you? Is that why you’re so indebted to him now?”

Yes. Him bent over her broken body, pulling the tree away from where it had collapsed in on her, mercifully saved from the flames; rummaging through ivy and tearing it away. The stupid thing that he had done to save her; the pilot-girl’s genius at bringing him back. Missy had been passed out, then, but she knew that the girl must have done it, and she resented the fact that there had never been an opportunity to thank her.

“No,” she lied, with the same formulated air of indignation. “I’m insulted that you think I needed saving. I’m stunning at playing dead when I need to, and I daresay I made death look pretty beautiful. The look on your face, well - you believed the lie, of course you did - really, I thought there was room for only one me on Floor 507. And considering I’m more competent nine times out of ten, it was only fair that that should be me.”

“My arrogance wasn’t lost on you either,” he pointed out, and he wasn’t wrong. She could be incredibly arrogant, should she want to be; humility was one of the things the Doctor had been trying to instil in her for years - but had never quite succeeded. “Unfortunately, I think you lose this time.”

His hand gripped her wrist tightly, before sliding into her sleeve. Checking for a sneaky trick - as if she’d use the same one twice.

“Let go, you idiot,” Missy muttered through clenched teeth. Relax. Keep up the act. “I came here to get these drums out of my head, so do it, and we can be on our way and go back to ignoring our almost-killers on our merry way, hmm? Can’t have you stealing my killing-the-Doctor thunder, now can I?”

“Are you going for the Salome approach? Fuck him, then kill him?” The Master snorted, and it was clear he didn't much believe her. “How cliche.” 

“You’re a walking cliche, sweetheart,” she shot back, “now let go of me and get out of my head.”

His grip faltered just for a moment and she thought he would let go, so she relaxed her stance. But instead, he jerked her in, and reversed their positions so her back was against the wall. “It’s a shame, really, you are beautiful.”

It was then that she noticed that her umbrella had skittered across the floor. She must have let go of it, what with the shock of the movement.

“Now don’t worry,” he said, readying his screwdriver, “I’m not killing you yet. Just a knock-out setting. You never know, when I kill you I might just let you regenerate. To see if there’s a better, more manly future ahead that’s worth waiting for?”

She glared at him and had time to scowl before there was a flash of brightness, and then darkness once again.


End file.
